Jaafar Panahi is in the US to attend Beyond Fest and the New York Film Festival after a visa delay
Updated on the events of Jafar Panahi’s arrival in the United States: Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has missed a series of events after his visa was delayed due to the US government shutdown, arrived Tuesday with his first scheduled stop at a Beyond Fest screening and Q&A for his Palme d’Or-winning film at Cannes. It was just an accident.
He will be at the New York Film Festival on Wednesday for a screening and Q&A after missing its New York premiere last week. The festival also rescheduled a conversation with Panahi and Martin Scorsese for Friday, one of the highlights of the New York Film Festival talks it canceled last week.
previously: Neon is hopeful that Jaafar Panahi will be in the United States early Tuesday after the ongoing US government shutdown slowed down his visa, causing him to miss an eventful week headlined by the New York Film Festival premiere of his Palme d’Or-winning film at Cannes. It was just an accident.
The visa was not ready in time to take him to that screening or to a meeting at the New York Film Festival with Martin Scorsese, a highlight of the festival’s talks, which was cancelled. And the festival is clearly hopeful as well, announcing on Monday evening a newly added screening of the film on Wednesday, October 8 at 3pm at Alice Tully Hall with a Q&A, noting that Panahi is expected to attend in person. The film was also scheduled to be screened that night at BAM, one of the festival’s venues.
Festival artistic director Dennis Lim, surrounded by French producers Panahi, Input The premiere described the director’s absence as “an annoying situation for many reasons.” Over the years, Panahi was twice imprisoned in Iran and banned from filming. “With increasing threats to freedom of expression here and around the world, show us what it means to be an artist facing the moment,” Lim said.
Panahi also missed Friday’s DGA screening and Saturday’s BAFTA screening in New York City and won’t make it to the honors gala at the Mill Valley Film Festival tonight.
However, Neon, which will release the film in theaters this month, is hopeful that Panahi will be able to travel to Los Angeles tomorrow for the film’s West Coast premiere at Beyond Fest. There is an official academy presentation on Sunday. He will have some time back and forth between Los Angeles and New York.
Neon Film opens in New York at Film At Lincoln Center and Film Forum on October 15 and in Los Angeles at AMC Century City on October 17.y.
In his remarks, Lim described Panahi as “one of the greatest filmmakers of the last several decades. He hasn’t been here for at least 25 years and I think that’s what makes it sad – he’s also an exemplary figure in this moment. Jafar Panahi has endured censorship, bans, arrests and all kinds of persecution. And through it all, he has made one great film after another, always speaking truth to power, always considering his circumstances but… And it transcends them as well.”
It was just an accidentpolitically prickly yet comedic, follows a group of unjustly imprisoned working-class people who seek revenge on the prison guard who tortured and terrorized them. The man they arrested has a leg as cramped as their attacker, but they’re not entirely sure he’s the right man. The film stars Wahid Mubasiri as a mechanic who suffers traumatic kidney injuries as a result of prison beatings, and first follows the distinct sound of a prosthetic leg drilled into his brain and sets the plot in motion. The cast includes Maryam Afshari, Mohammad Boulasmehr, Majid Panahi, George Hashem Zadia, Dalmaz Najafi, and Afsaneh Najmabadi.
Panahi’s French producers, Philippe Martin and David Theon, described a harrowing 20-day shoot using only two cars for the cast and crew to avoid attracting attention. However, the team was briefly stopped and arrested, and the camera was confiscated. Fortunately, most of the material was on a computer, which was not the case. The footage was flown to France, with all post-production in Paris. It was not clear until the last minute that the accompanying delegation would be able to leave for Cannes. The women in the cast were warned that they would get into big trouble back home if they walked the red carpet without a head covering.
When Panahi returned to Tehran from Cannes, a large welcoming crowd at the airport, combined with the aura of the Palme d’Or, seemed to create a kind of safety net, the producers said. “But you never know. He lives with the sword of Damocles,” Martin said at the BAFTA presentation.
It was just an accident It is France’s official nomination for the Academy Award for Best International Film.
Panahi was in competition at Cannes in 2018 with 3 faces, He won the Camera d’Or for his first film White balloon In 1995 he won the Jury Prize in “Un Certain Regard”. Scarlet gold In 2003.